


The King Comes Home

by Caenea



Series: The Winterfell Reunions [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: And because it touches on murder, F/M, Fix of Eastwatch, Look I fixed Episode 5, No Smut, Potential relationship mentioned, Rated explicit because it's weepy, Sibling Reunion, Spoilers, enjoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 11:04:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11804721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caenea/pseuds/Caenea
Summary: Jon Snow and Gendry return to Winterfell before they head beyond the wall, and Arya is reunited with her brother and a man she;s believed dead for years...





	The King Comes Home

**Author's Note:**

> I fixed that god-awful decision made by D&D to not have Jon and Gendry return to Winterfell before going on their Fellowship of the White Walker suicide quest.  
> SPOILERS

The guard stamps to attention in front of my sister, and she looks up in her own time.

                “The King has returned, My Lady,” he says, and her whole face lights up like he’s lit a candle inside it. I’ve dreamt of Jon for so long I don’t know what to say, or what to do.

                “Thank you. Where is he?”

                “Approaching the gates, My Lady. He sent a rider.”

                “Give the rider ale, some food. Arya?” she asks, turning to me. “Aren’t you coming?”

                “I –“ but I can’t continue because I have nothing to say. I don’t know what to say, I don’t know how to speak suddenly, my throat is dry and there is a lump in it. Has he thought of me? Did he think I was dead?

                “I’ll send him to you, if you like.”

                “No. I’ll come. In a moment.”

 

I make my way to the walkway that overlooks the courtyard. Once, in another life, I shot an arrow at a target Bran was attempting to hit. Jon turned to look and laughed, as Bran chased me and our parents laughed as they stood here and looked at us. Another life – another time. Winter is here now and all the furs in the world cannot keep out the cold of a long night. Old Nan would say that children could be born and die and never see the sun. She called us Summer Children, said we did not know cold or darkness. And we, so innocent and so arrogant in our safety, only laughed. But she was right, she was always right. The stories we loved to hear on a snowy night beside the fire are real now. I don’t know if I believe in White Walkers, or if I believe in armies of dead men. Bran says they are true, Sansa says Jon has seen them. But I have fought men they claimed could not be defeated. I have killed. The dead hold no fear for me.

 

It is the living I fear. I was a child when I last saw Jon, before he left us to take the black. Now I am a killer, an assassin and a Faceless Man. He is King in the North and the man who has fought the dead. I’m afraid he will condemn me for who I was, I am afraid he will not know me when he looks into my eyes. Will he see the men I killed? Will he see the blood on my hands? Will I see the blood on his? My heart is beating an irregular rhythm against my ribs, slipping inside me until I feel it may leave me completely and I realise that it is because I am afraid. I have not been afraid in a long time, but I am afraid now. Will he know me? Will he know my face at once? Sansa is waiting in the courtyard for him, her red hair so vivid against the white of the snow. She’s talking with a guard, possibly enquiring after the rider who rode ahead to announce the King.

 

The gates of Winterfell creak open, hinges howling against the shriek of the wind rushing through the arches. Jon is home, home safe despite going to a Dragon Queen. He is home despite the stories of the Dragon Queen burning men alive with her dragons, and he is not harmed.

 

He looks older, there are scars on his face now, the marks of a man who has been living hard and living dangerously. There are scars on me too, but none that can be seen. Some are covered by clothes and some are buried deep inside, made by grief rather than swords. He is here, he is here, he is here. I could run down the steps and he would see me at once. Sansa hugs him, her smile wide enough to light up the whole of the North, and he’s asking her something, looking round. She’s nodding, and his joy is so clear, so obvious. My feet are moving without instruction from me, Needle swinging at my hip and cloak flying. I’m at the head of the stairs when Sansa turns to scan for me. She smiles, she’s always been the beautiful one, but Jon is moving past her because he has seen me too. I take the stairs three at a time, rushing to him because against the odds somehow, he is pleased to see me.

 

He sweeps me up, catches me into his arms exactly as he did the day he said goodbye and he still smells like my brother. He’s more solid than the last time, muscles covering those delicate bones and hardened up by life at the Wall – and beyond if the stories are to believed.

                “You’re taller,” he whispers and I can hear the sob in his voice.

                “You’re not,” I answer and he half-laughs, half-chokes as he swings me round and sets me on my feet.

                “Look at you,” he says. “You wear your sword like any good soldier should.” I draw it and see the recognition. “It’s Needle.”

                “It’s served me well,” I answer. “It’s been a good friend to me. I heard you went to meet the Dragon Queen.”

                “I did. I heard you were dead.”

                “Not me,” I answer. “Not today.”

 

He steps away from me, and I know he’s going to give me bad news. But before he can speak, someone else does.

                “Arya?” I turn, my happiness blurring into shock. And it’s him. The man who said I’d be ‘my lady’ and that he’d have to bow to me. The Red Priestess took him away; I believed she took him to die. But there he is, larger than life, clutching a warhammer and making it look like it doesn’t weigh a damn thing, as if he was born to carry the thing.

                “Gendry?” I ask, because even though I know it is he, I must question it. He drops the warhammer, it falls to the bare stones with a clang and a thud that echoes loudly in the courtyard, reflected back to us by the stone walls of my home. When he last saw me, I was filthy with the travelling we’d done, and he’d realised I was a girl. I’d told him who I was – Arya Stark of Winterfell. _‘You’d be my lady’_ he’d said, when I tried to insist we could be friends. He’s coming towards me, his arms are sliding around me and he certainly isn’t doing any bowing or calling me anything but my name.

 

It’s quite a long time before he puts me down; it’s quite a long time before I step back from him. He looks me over, eyes lingering on the cloak and sword and trousers.

                “You survived,” I blurt out, gazing back at him.

                “I did. Thanks to Davos.” I don’t know who Davos might be, and honestly I don’t believe I care right now. “You did too.”

                “It takes a lot to kill a wolf,” I answer.

                “You’re no wolf,” he answers. “You’re a direwolf. You’re a lot tougher than just any old wolf. I can’t believe you made it home.”

                “It took a long time,” I answer, carefully because I don’t want to tell him my entire story here, although I want to tell him because I want him to know what I did and who I became. He would not judge me, he would not question me. “And it was a hard road.”

                “Mine wasn’t exactly a walk in a rose garden,” he answers.

                “You said you’d have to bow, if I was Lady Stark,” I say, reminding him of that last conversation. He smiles at me and I don’t understand why my heart skips a beat.

                “You aren’t Lady Stark. Your sister’s Lady Stark. You’re Arya.”

                “Yes,” I say. “I am.” And then his hands are on my face and his thumb has touched my lips and I cannot breathe because his eyes are bluer than the summer sky. My hands are on his wrists, holding them there so he cannot stop touching me because suddenly I’m shaking. “I’m Arya Stark, I’m no lady.”

                “It’s overrated, I reckon,” he whispers. “But I’d still bow if you asked.”

                “I’m never going to ask,” I whisper back. And he holds my face in his hands and I hold his wrists in mine, and we stay like that for a long, long time.


End file.
